Story
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">Nearly three years ago I took a phone call at work. It was Jan, my wife. She had taken our son Robert to the hospital to have his hearing tested. She told me that Robert was deaf. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;"> Robert was diagnosed as profoundly deaf at the age of two years old. The initial shock was huge but in some ways there was a sense of relief to be given a diagnosis after many months of knowing that something wasn’t right but being told that his hearing was fine. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">After much research Jan found a wonderful pre-school centre for children with speech, language and hearing problems called </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">Christopher Place</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">. After our first visit we knew that this was the right place for Robert. For the past two and a half years we have travelled across </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">London</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;"> on busy tubes and trains to attend this amazing centre. Despite having a hearing aid and a device called a cochlear implant, learning to listen and speak remain difficult tasks for Robert. The </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">Christopher Place</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;"> building was specially designed to reduce the echo and background noise making it easier for children to hear speech sounds. The class sizes are small so that the children are not overwhelmed by the sound of too many voices. The staff are amazing in their expertise, patience, understanding and professionalism. <br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">The support that Robert and our family as a whole have received from Christopher Place has been immense and it was with this in mind that I thought it would be good to raise some much needed funds for them through one of their places in the London Marathon. How hard could it be to run 26.2 miles??</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">I had always wanted to run the Marathon and often saw a bit of it on TV whilst having a Sunday morning cup of tea on the sofa. I’d think “yeah one day….maybe next year”. Thanks to Christopher Place and the support of Jan, Robert and our daughter Eleanor (who has kindly offered to postpone her 7th Birthday, which falls on the same day as the marathon, until the following weekend) I have swapped tea for isotonic sports drinks and sofa for trainers and am doing my best to fit in enough training to see me finish the race. <br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">All the money you donate will help </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;">Christopher Place</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial;"> to help children like Robert on their first steps towards hearing, speech, language and learning. Thank you so much for your generosity.</span></p>
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